Thursday, August 14, 2008

Analytics is the Key To Search Success

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, did it make a noise? This is a very well known argument but illustrates my point about analytics. If you don’t see how many people are looking at your website, where they are located, the website that referred them and the conversion funnel that your readers took; than you can’t make any informed decisions about optimization or paid search strategy.

Free Analytics Packages

If you don’t have a lot of money (or you do have a lot of money) and need to keep track of your websites analytics register with Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools. With easy website verification and pixel placement, you can start tracking the traffic to your website.

Paid Search Analytics

It is very important to keep track of paid search traffic so you know what source is referring the most amount of traffic and conversions. By knowing exactly where your conversions are coming from you can make informed decisions about fund allocations. Set a Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) goal to guide you in your paid search strategy.Finally, don’t let someone else keep track of your data and have exclusive rights, make sure you have access to your own analytics for future strategy. Having a full years worth of data can help you make better strategic decisions rather than starting from scratch.